Soon after waking up in the morning, I open my laptop and read several newspapers and newsletters. Not carefully and not entirely, of course. On principle, I skip all stories that have “real” in the headline – items such as “What Trump is Really Doing with his Boat Strikes,” “What’s the Real Poverty Line?” “The Real Root Cause of Sciatica.”
Such approaches might as well have a preamble reading, “You may think you know something about the topic named, but you are misguided and sorely in need of my direction; the story that follows will set you straight.” Oh yeah? I don’t like being talked to that way: it’s condescending.
I don’t care for “actually” either. It’s “real” light. Example: “Actually, the Supreme Court Has a Plan.” Subtext: whatever understanding you have of the Supreme Court is wrong, (and you are dumb as dirt). My guess is that these writers probably know that such headlines are ineffective as enticements to read. They just want to establish superiority, and never mind if they are insulting in the process.
Even if the writer is an eminent authority, it is better not to approach readers in this way. It discourages thinking. There are almost always more or less reasonable versions of the same news story. (I’m not referring to “alternate facts” as employed by Trumpists – “Trump’s first inauguration drew the largest crowd in history.” That sort of thing.) As for opinion pieces – they are arguable by definition.
In addition to my personal sensitivity, there is another reason to skip stories based on “real” or “actually.” They leave out nuance, a habit of mind essential to effective government of the people, by the people, and for the people. George W. Bush declared proudly, “I don’t do nuance,” and a tenet of his foreign policy was “You’re either for us or against us.” We know what that got us. Ronald Reagan built his popularity and his presidency on the simplistic slogan that “government is the problem,” a notion that left out, for example, regulation of the financial industry. Think the savings and loan crisis.
Not to be too hard on politicians. They respond to demand. Self-assured oversimplification sells. Voters crave it. Reasonableness and equivocation rot on the campaign shelf. G.H.W. Bush’s Willie Horton will always beat Dukakis’s hesitant, cerebral response to the hypothetical question about his wife’s rape.
It’s a widely held belief that America would benefit from requiring civics classes in all schools. Of course it would. We could also use inculcation of skepticism and wariness of premises. “Make America Great Again” would have been a losing slogan if more people had asked, “When was it great and in what way? During slavery? Before women could vote?”
The American experiment in self-government is hindered by media persistence in using “real” and “actual.” They function like seals of approval and tend to make critical thinking unnecessary, maybe even undesirable.